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Last week the girls and I threw a cooking show(er) for Angel, who becomes Mrs. Aquino this month. As we gathered in an airy kitchen and chopped vegetables and grated cheese and poured white wine into glasses, I thought about how it isn't just romance-novel yearning that manifests itself in the tiniest, subtlest details; friendship, too, exists in a hand on your back or a smile from across the room or that extra spoonful of sugar when the medicine just won't go down like it's meant to. When you're in your late 20s I suppose friendship evolves into this: a strong and silent faith in one another, a purposeful desire——rather than a need——for each other's company that comes in waves, sober weeknights and restful weekends, and plans that are made way ahead of time because spontaneity has to succumb to security and commitment sooner or later, which is what it is and is not necessarily a terrible thing.

I have always known that for someone so stubbornly solitary, I am lucky to have friends who get me. I have always known this, and I will always know this, but when I am crying until I'm laughing or telling someone that I will never not be on her side, ever, I know it most of all.